Two associations filed a complaint after the death of a jogger in an area filled with green algae. The Saint-Brieuc prosecutor’s office ordered an autopsy.
A fortnight ago, a runner died at the mouth of the Gouessant (Côtes d’Armor), in an area where old sediments of green algae mix with the mud. While the investigation was about to be completed, two associations decided to file a complaint. They put back on the table the trail of green algae as a possible origin of this death.
“It is quite deliberately that the Prefects of the Brittany Region and the Côtes d’Armor have endangered the lives (…) of all users of the coast”, write the associations Halte aux tides verte and Safeguarding the Trégor in a letter to the Prosecutor, quoted by AFP.
Autopsy of the body
The two associations want to “take civil action against the prefects in their own right and in their person”. The complaint was filed this Friday. After having, at first, dismissed the responsibility of the green algae in the death, the parquet floor of Saint-Brieuc ordered this Thursday the exhumation of the body of the 50-year-old jogger, familiar with the place, found face down on the edges from the estuary of the river on September 8.
The Saint-Brieuc prosecutor, Bertrand Leclerc, thus requested additional hearings and an autopsy of the body in order to carry out anatomopathological and toxicological analyzes.
Hydrogen sulfide
The death of the runner occurred in the area where 36 wild boars perished in the summer of 2011. A report from the National Health Security Agency (ANSES) had then put forward strong presumptions about the emissions of hydrogen sulfide, coming from these decomposing algae in these successive deaths.
“The family was against the autopsy from the start,” said the magistrate in charge of the case, quoted by The Parisian. As long after the death, we are aware that it is double the penalty. But to autopsy, the suspicion must be reasonable enough. It’s the case. “
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